by Al K. Line
Wand vibrated in my pocket like he was having a stick seizure, my body thrummed with the immense potential it contained, all that energy stored in a tiny flesh-prison, and we both burst into life simultaneously.
One of us burst in a more literal sense than the other. Wand burned a hole right through my pocket and my hand automatically snapped out to grab him as he shot skyward. The warm wood felt like shaking the hand of an old, dear friend, and we said a silent hello to each other.
"You dirty devil," he said, and I could picture him grinning.
"I am, aren't I?" I said silently, my throat being squeezed so tight I was losing focus.
Having had many a near death experience before, and not as worried about it as those who only got to experience it once, I stayed as calm as I could and focused my will. This would be a delicate operation, no blasting wanted or required.
I let a spell form, the words unnecessary, just the memory, a feeling of the complete system wrapped up into a tiny ball of pure intent, and energy streamed down my arm and into Wand, who flared bright and joyous at the return to form.
He vibrated so fast he was a blur, but that may have just been the lack of oxygen to my brain. The sigils flared bright, he spasmed once, then twisted my wrist until his tip made contact with a pink finger bone trying to work its way through my throat.
To say it was electric is an understatement. It's like saying attaching electrodes to your balls makes them tingle, and as the energy expunged through Wand and tore at the fingers, my heart stopped for a moment under the onslaught.
A reassuring thud, thud, thud, signified I wasn't dead yet, and the easing around my neck told me we were onto a winner here, so I pushed deeper, sliced Wand across the bones like an amateur playing the xylophone, resulting in a cacophony of wood on bone worse than a woodpecker having a seizure.
Magic flared in earnest.
Bright and beautiful, Wand's power was unleashed in an extravagant display that shook my teeth loose and made the hairs on my ears retreat inside for safety. The Kinky Bones made a last-ditch attempt to pierce my skin but our power was too strong and the hand tumbled away to the ground. I wasted no time clambering to my feet and assuming a suitably impressive fighting stance. My knee hurt from bending it, but I looked awesome so it was all good.
All of this happened so fast that George and Penelope still hadn't quite reached us, but it would only be a second and they'd be here.
"Get back," I screamed, then muttered under my breath and a sigil on Wand shone like a blood moon. Red energy crackled, disrupting the night sky as it blasted the ground at Mabel's feet and she was lost to a shower of earth and sod as a seven-feet-wide and deep hole exploded right where she stood.
George and Penelope pulled up short at the chaos and I shouted again, "Go back, I can handle this." George and I made eye contact and I nodded to her. She did likewise then grabbed Penelope and dragged her away even as she called out to me. Me, she was calling for me. That was sweet.
With renewed vigor and determination, I let loose again with another blast of violence designed to destroy not Mabel but the ground, forcing her to retreat and reconsider her actions.
She stepped back, but she wasn't panicking, and she even smiled as I held wand aloft, ready to go at it again.
Then something grabbed my foot and I knew why she was so damn smug.
Kinky Bones gripped my shin hard and squeezed, the pain immense as bone ground against bone. I hopped about, shaking my leg, looking less than awesome now. Mabel cackled as she advanced.
I lowered Wand and used him to prise the bones away from my leg, but no sooner were they off and laying on the ground than they regrouped into a skeletal hand and launched at me, this time going for somewhere much more delicate and definitely less bony.
Have you ever been grabbed in the nether regions by a set of imperishable magical bones renowned for being part of a powerful witch who was as kinky as they come? No? It was a first for me too.
The bones did something weird to that place between a man's most important bits and my bum, and I wasn't sure what exactly was happening, but I knew I didn't like it. Fingers reached up and did unspeakable things to my limp, shrunken member, and it was right about then I may have yelped and clawed frantically at my molester as the hand gripped tight and kept on squeezing.
"You won't be a man for much longer," laughed Mabel as she took another step forward and pulled out a familiar object from her pocket.
"Seriously? You're going to shoot me again?"
"Why change what works?" she said with a smile as she aimed.
The Queen squeezed the trigger.
This was becoming annoying.
An Aha Moment
The hand did something particularly disgusting involving one finger forward, one back—which wasn't as nice as it sounds—and I gasped as I doubled over, timed to perfection more through luck than sheer awesomeness, and the bullet sailed past.
"Wand, sort that out will you?" I hissed as I grabbed the bones in my left hand and flung him at Mabel with a throw that would make any cricket bowler clutch his head in shame for my pathetic ability.
"Be a pleasure," he said, following up with a happy, "Whee," as he flew at the Queen.
Mabel's eyes widened as Wand shot at her, streaming through the night like an angry comet. He hit the gun's barrel dead center and Mabel's hand spasmed then caught fire as the metal melted and her skin sizzled.
She screamed and dropped what she could of the gun but it was molten now, most of it wrapped tight around her hand, melding to flesh and bone, her hand utterly useless. She screamed and screamed again, unable to stop wailing, but I had my own problems to deal with. Namely, the perverted hand fondling nether regions in a way-too-intimate, but less than arousing manner.
Wand hovered there like a, well, like a hovering stick, as I shouted, "I didn't know you could do that."
"Neither did I," he replied, sounding pleased. Which you would be, wouldn't you?
"Do what?" screamed the Queen, staring at her hand in horror.
"I was talking to him," I said, now not the time to get into it.
Wand shot back and I reached out and grabbed him like I'd thrown a boomerang that had actually come back like it was supposed to.
The bones were playing up again and I gasped and almost fell as they clutched tight and something began to tear. Oh no, this wasn't good. Penelope wouldn't want me to be broken, I didn't want it either.
"I have a plan," I croaked to Wand.
"And I like it," he replied, sounding too damn cheery by half.
"Ready?"
"Yup."
I smashed down onto the bones with more force than I'd intended, and although it did the job, I knocked myself over and fell flailing into the frosty grass. It felt nice, the iciness easing the fearsome burn. As the bones scurried across the grass, regrouping for another assault on my neck now I was an easy target, I rested Wand on the ground then released him.
He swept this way and that in front of the bones and they grabbed onto the shaft and clung there, trying to squeeze the life out of him. Fully loaded with a complete hand now forming a tight grip along his length, he set off like a rocket towards Mabel and smashed into her mangled hand.
The metal shattered, and so did the bones and flesh beneath, and the whole thing fell to the ground with a dull thud. The Queen's eyes clamped shut before she leaned her head back and screamed into the night sky as she waved her stump around, the wound already cauterized.
But Wand wasn't finished yet, and he darted forward and impaled himself on the stump, burrowing deep as Mabel let loose with a primeval wail of utter agony mixed with terror.
I clambered to my feet and moved forward, watching as Wand burrowed deeper until the Kinky Bones made contact with the witch's flesh. The bones swayed this way and that, as if sniffing out fresh flesh, and then the entire hand leaped forward and grabbed tight around Mabel's forearm.
"Here, boy," I said, then whistled.
&n
bsp; "You cheeky blighter," laughed Wand as he pulled free with a sick squelch then angled back to me. I caught him with a now practiced ease and blew on the end, as much to get the goop off as to cool him down.
As I moved to stand in front of Mabel, I watched as the Kinky Bones shifted on her forearm, then crawled down even as Mabel pleaded to get it off her and clawed at the bones to no avail. The hand jumped forward and snapped onto the end of Mabel's stump.
"Okay, are you going to say it, or shall I?" I asked Wand.
"You do it. You deserve it."
I readied myself for the worst line I'd ever uttered, smiling despite myself, and said, "That was handy."
Wand groaned, but chortled nonetheless, and as Mabel screamed yet again and ran around battling at her new hand and then dropping to the ground and thumping the bones against the mangled mess of her own ruined hand, I suddenly had a moment of clarity.
Why wasn't she doing something about this? Why was she just smacking about, hoping it would release itself?
"You can't do magic on your own, can you? It's true. The Kinky Bones drain the owner's magic. You're almost a citizen."
Mabel looked at me with pure frustration and a deep sadness before the tears fell. She hung her head and her arm went limp. She'd given up, admitted defeat, and could do nothing to stop this. Queen Witch without magic.
Downer.
The Truth
"But you're a witch," I said softly, watching as the tears fell. The Queen was silent now, her screams spent, but as she looked into my eyes she whimpered like a puppy waiting outside the supermarket for its owner to return.
"Help me, please?" she pleaded, staring at her alien hand.
"How can you not have magic? How are you Queen if you can't use it?" I was certain of it now. It explained so much, especially the gun.
"I don't have to tell you anything!" spat Mabel, bitter and mean even now when she was pleading for help.
"Suit yourself." I turned my back on her.
George and Penelope, unable to contain themselves, came running across the field; no way would they return to the house this time.
"Dad, are you okay?" George flung herself at me and I hugged her then backed off and held her at arm's length.
"I'm fine, just shaken up. Damn, that was a close one."
"Arthur, you... you... you used magic! You're a wizard!" Penelope blurted, looking as confused as Vicky in an adult clothes store.
"I know. I told you I was." My knees buckled and I almost fell but George and Penelope caught me and held me upright.
"Sorry about this. It's a bit much, I know." I glanced at the corpses, the ruined hand on the ground, and at Mabel herself. She was on her knees, whimpering with pain and humiliation.
"A bit much? You killed them, you used magic, you... And your wand, it..." Penelope stared in horror at the stump on the ground then at the dead bodies, then at Mabel, and I think something must have finally clicked into place. The horror of it all. As I watched Penelope, saw her take it all in for the first time as the adrenaline slowed, I understood. I'd lost her.
She was seeing it for what it was, seeing me for who I was, and it wasn't a pretty sight. I was blase about the whole thing, wasn't unduly affected by the death, it being such a constant, but my heart went out to Mabel for the mess she was, for what she'd made me do to save myself and those I loved. But I understood Penelope's reaction, because this was terrible. People were dead or maimed, everyone had been in danger, and it wasn't right.
Penelope's eyes glazed over as shock set in.
"Help me, please," pleaded Mabel as she held her hand up and the fingers bent.
"You brought this on yourself. What was I supposed to do?" I said.
"It will kill me. Please?"
"Like you wanted it to kill me? The way you intended to use it to kill Ivan? You've got no magic of your own, and you were going to use this to eliminate him. What then, eh? Think you would have been safe having so much power? Ah, so that's it. You wanted the power to hide your lack of ability. With so much control, you'd never have to get your own hands dirty again. You could use your people, nobody would expect you to get involved personally." It was a hell of a way to hide a secret, but at least she thought suitably epic.
"It went so slowly," she whispered. "I searched for the Quiet Place but I couldn't find a way in. I can't access the magic I've spent a lifetime immersed in. The Kinky Bones want power. They talk to me, tell me to do things. If I let them take Ivan, I will have my magic returned. Argh, help." Mabel clutched the bones as the fingers went nuts bending and wriggling as she tried to stop them.
Then the hand bunched into a fist and smacked her square on the nose. Blood spurted as she screamed, and cartilage snapped but the fist kept on hammering at her as her head whipped sideways and she fought for control.
The Queen slammed her arm into the ground but it made no difference, and the hand acted more viciously each time she did so. Mabel was exhausted, muscles strained at her neck, her face was a bloody mess as she got punched repeatedly, and she gave up trying to stop it. I grabbed her, yanked on the forearm to stop the fist connecting, but there was too much power, too much strength, and it broke free and continued to punch and slap.
"Cut it off, please, cut it off," yelled Mabel through broken teeth, her lips split, blood pouring from her face in multiple places.
"Go get a knife," I said to George as I grabbed the arm again and pulled as hard as I could. "Penelope, go with George and stay at the house."
Penelope nodded numbly, then turned and walked away as George ran as fast as she could.
"Why all this, Mabel? Why were you going to do it? The truth."
"To have control. I thought I could regain what I'd lost. I'm weak, everyone would find out sooner or later. I had to do something for me, but for my sisters too. We would have glorious power, be feared and respected, and we could rule. Men don't deserve the power. They ruin everything. And the hand, it wanted me to do this. It's done things to me, to my mind. I know it, but I can't stop it. Can't stop myself."
"You got that bit right," I said, straining to stop the fist battering her to death, my own muscles screaming with the effort.
"Why did you lose your abilities? I know for a fact it isn't just the hand. It can't be, magic doesn't work like that." I asked, but I wasn't sure I really wanted to know the answer. I'd heard of it happening before, but rarely, and there was always something momentous behind it. A life-changing event that broke the connection, sometimes permanently, with the Quiet Place. You could blame artifacts, say they sucked it out of you, but you had to give in to it. Mabel had been strong, she shouldn't have given up like this.
"I lost something precious, and then I was alone. Couldn't gain access. Something broke inside. The hand called, promised me power if I gave it some of my own. It promised great things if I would help it for a while." Mabel would have said more, I'm sure, but I couldn't keep hold and the Kinky Bones smashed into her mouth, completely ruining her lips and knocking several teeth right out.
Mabel spat blood and teeth onto the grass and shrieked then laughed. A manic, soul-wrenching cackle of the damned and disgraced. She'd lost it, was on the other side now, deep in the throes of madness.
Where the hell was George?
I spied her running at us, but when I turned back the bones were wrapped tight around Mabel's throat. She'd be dead before George made it. I readied myself, drew on what little strength I had remaining, and pulled Wand out. No reaction.
"Wand, wake up," I shouted as I shook him. Nothing. He was spent, his actions too much for both of us. We'd called on something special and powerful but it was used up, and the source of that power, the connection with Penelope, was gone. Penelope had been broken by a single day in my presence, and the magic had gone along with her.
I grabbed the bones, tried to prize fingers apart, but it was no use. I stared into Mabel's eyes as she gasped then stopped breathing. A few seconds later the bones relaxed and the arm went limp
, fell across Mabel's chest as she keeled over and lay in the grass.
"Got it," said George, panting as she held my Santoku cleaver out for me.
"Get the cauldron," I mumbled. "And the hay that was inside."
George looked at me quizzically, then at Mabel, and said, "Oh." She dropped the knife and ran to do as I'd asked.
I picked up the cleaver, took a deep breath, then chopped the bones off as best I could. It took a few goes, and it wasn't pretty, but I got it done.
George placed the cauldron down and held the hay. "What now?"
"As soon as I throw the bones in, put the hay on top. Then we put a bloody good ward up, okay? I don't know what the grass does, but I'm guessing it's there for a reason."
"Okay."
I scooped the bones up on the cleaver's blade and dropped them inside the cauldron. They rattled around, awareness returning, so George hurriedly covered them. They stilled, so we wasted no time, and together we formed a ward to stop them being removed or escaping. It would do for now, until I thought of something better.
I stood with a groan and said, "Come on, let's go back to the house."
We walked arm in arm away from the massacre of the Kinky Bones.
Blew It
Penelope was standing at the open doorway next to a concerned looking Vicky.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"Fine. Kind of."
"Take me home, please," said Penelope, her face blank, her body almost limp.
"Let me explain first," I said, already knowing the answer.
"I just want to go home." Penelope began to cry.
"Okay, let's go," I said.
"No, George can do it."
With those words, my heart, which I'd been so careful to protect, was broken. I knew I should have just given Penelope her shopping and got the hell away as fast as I could. It would never mend from this.
I nodded, resigned to a lonely future.
Penelope followed George to the car.
She never looked back. She never even said goodbye.
